“No. Cars.”
Caleb overheard.
“He taught me motorcycles later.”
“You couldn't even change a tire when I met you.”
Caleb looked offended.
“I was seventeen.”
“You were hopeless.”
Everyone laughed.
And Mara realized something.
The house wasn't just being repaired.
It was becoming a home again.
That afternoon, Caleb found an old wooden toolbox in the garage.
Dust covered the lid.
He opened it.
Inside were wrenches, screwdrivers and a faded photograph.
Caleb picked it up.
He was seventeen again.
Thin.
Angry.
Standing beside Thomas.
Thomas had one arm around his shoulders.
Caleb smiled.
Mara entered the garage.
She saw the photograph.
“I've never seen that one.”
“Neither had I.”
She took it.
For several seconds, she couldn't speak.
Thomas looked so young.
Caleb looked almost unrecognizable.
“You were just a boy.”
“I know.”
“What happened to you?”
Caleb looked toward the driveway.
“A lot.”
He told her about the years afterward.
The mistakes.
The fights.
The arrests.
The people he lost.
And eventually the people who helped him build something better.
“Thomas was the first,” he said.
Mara touched the photograph.
“He worried about you.”
“I didn't know.”
“He used to say, 'That boy has more good in him than he knows.'”
Caleb lowered his head.
Those words broke something inside him.
For years, he had believed he owed Thomas a debt because Thomas had saved him.
But now he understood another truth.
Thomas had believed in him before Caleb knew how to believe in himself.
That kind of gift could never be repaid.